Volunteering? Have your own will, or just say no way

This story is true. I've dropped the names and may have fiddled with genders to provide protective camouflage. The facts are the facts. The opinion, well I guarantee that's accurate.

Once upon a time, there was a bright, friendly, engaging high-school student. She was adept enough to earn good grades and, in the course of time, was invited to join the high school's chapter of the National Honor Society.

It's a high-level academic honor, a reward for those who hit the books. There aren't too many such awards for those who are merely good students. Other honors and far greater attention accrue to those who also happen to have athletic prowess or musical talent. So be it.

The girl went through the induction ceremony and joined the group. Not much more thought was immediately given to the whole thing.

A couple months later, the girl came home and said, "I quit the National Honor Society today."

There was a conversation, as one might suppose. Her departure, by her choice, wasn't a function of grades. It was a function of another requirement of the NHS, one that she could not fulfill.

The NHS chapter at the school included a volunteerism component. And it was one the student did not feel she could complete. Faced with the choice of bowing to the rules of the group or choosing her individual path, she walked away.

It was the right thing to do. It will always be the right thing to do.

Volunteerism? Nothing wrong with it.

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So long as the individual doing the volunteering is doing so of his own free will, for a cause in which he believes or for a reason that makes sense to him. To him - not necessarily to anyone else.

The problem with the academic organization was not that it required volunteer work. The problem was that it had developed a list of what it found to be proper outlets for volunteerism, and none of them met the student's standards for something to which she was willing to give time.

Let's establish some additional background about the character of the student. This is an individual who had volunteered throughout an entire summer, often several days a week, for her school. This is an individual who volunteered for a period of months at the local library. This is an individual who tutored, acted as a peer counselor, served as an informal sounding board for her circle of friends and sought to always provide an ear for those in need of one. This is an individual who raised money to fight childhood cancer. This is an individual who gave hours of time, including some heavy labor, to a religious (but non-Christian) organization located outside the Lebanon Valley.

This is not a disconnected, uncaring young person. Be clear about that when you read what's next.

Many of the charitable organizations chosen by the school's NHS were Christian-based - not something she was willing to involve herself in; not her faith. Others were for causes or provided support for things in which the student did not believe or had yet to form an opinion.

A volunteer must be motivated by the desire to help a group. There must be a component of belief in the good that the group is doing. And there has to be matching philosophical, social and religious underpinnings, or the work that's being done is not truly voluntary.

Schools for years have touted volunteerism for their students. Nothing wrong with that. But they have also forced it upon many, many young people. And there is no such thing, never has been and never will be, as mandatory volunteerism.

Mandatory volunteerism, especially when it carries the reward of inclusion in a certain group or even acts as a graduation requirement, does no service to the development of an individual's sense of doing what's right according to his own mind. It is a disservice to the development of a thinking, caring person.

What it teaches is that we are expected to bow to society, to act as good little drones and smile while we accept whatever society determines to be the best use of our time. And for that, we receive society's accolades and our proper rewards.

Crap. Nonrecyclable crap.

There is only one person who determines the proper use of his time, and that is the individual himself. Anything else is, at worst, slavery. I don't know what the "at best" scenario would be. Compulsory work for no pay with little or no say in the type of work being done? Slavery.

It didn't have to be the way it was for the student. She spent most of the limited time she was a member of NHS trying to find a charitable outlet acceptable to both the organization and her. She offered proof of the time she had spent in voluntary work in which she believed. She had documentation available.

Not good enough. And not good enough primarily because the work wasn't done specifically in accord with the organization and its chosen charitable outlets.

Walking away from the National Honor Society wasn't an easy decision. It raised eyebrows among the group and at the school. Because, perhaps, 16-year-olds aren't supposed to have developed such a sense of their own individualism. They are supposed to still be molded into members of the collective that is society; to do things the way society would see them done. Well, they hadn't met her before. They won't learn a lesson from it; she'll be viewed as the outsider, the square wheel, the one who just wouldn't try to fit in.

I couldn't imagine better compliments. I can't even conform well to noncomformists. I am I, alone. She is the same. She's the one who gets it; society's still well behind on the learning curve.

Once in a while, there's a story that can be told about a person who believes that her personhood, her individuality, trumps society's demands, even if there is a punishment attached to such radical audacity.

We need a couple hundred thousand more young people like this one. We need a couple million more adults like her.

Want a stronger nation? Want a rejuvenating nation? Want a leading nation? Then stop thinking as "society" and begin allowing those who can, the individuals, think for themselves without punishment - and maybe learn some lessons from them. They're perfectly willing to give. It just has to be on their terms, for their own reasons and in their own manner.

That's the only way it can be if we're defining volunteerism and not slavery to society.

Forney is the editorial-page editor of the Lebanon Daily News. Email rahnforney@ldnews.com. He has a Facebook archive site; search Facebook Rahn Forney. Tweet @rahnbforney. Or try a tin whistle.